Rhindon
by Queen Edmund Pevensie
Summary: Caspian has Peter's sword aboard the Dawn Treader. Edmund's POV. book/movieverse for vdt.


**A/N: First fic of the summer! Sort of an amalgamation of book/movie verse. **

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They tell him Rhindon is an Old Narnian word when Peter finds it in a book on our third week as the _official_ Kings and Queens of Narnia. The Old Narnian language was very briefly spoken by the kings before Jadis came out of the North, and some of the Narnians in the wilder parts. It was taught to nobility all over the world, and technically, it was meant to be an "international language for easier and more seamless communication," but the Archenlanders spoke English anyway, although not a dialect spoken in England, but one easily picked up after a few years, and the Telmarines settled on English, for, as the legend goes, they were a band of pirates employed by the English crown with and English captain. It was like that in most parts of the world before and during out time in Narnia.

The Calormenes, of course, refused to teach Old Narnian based on the fact that the Northern Barbarians were devil-worshipping, sacrilegious people, and if the world was going to speak one language, it ought to be in one of their tongues anyway.

Rhindon, as far as any of the scholars could figure, was an Old Narnian word meaning Protection, or Lion-Crated, which, in any of the Old Tongues, meant basically the same thing. Peter liked it, liked the way _Rhindon_ rolled off his tongue, and he studied the Old Narnian devoutly for a few years, and realized that Rhindon meant more or less just that: protection. Only, it didn't exactly have a clear translation into English, and he liked that even more.

Within a week he was calling his sword Rhindon.

Caspian told me on the Dawn Treader that Rhindon was an old Narnian work for "magnificent" and I didn't correct him.

Caspian offered Rhindon to me, and I told him, without explaining and 1300 year old power structure, an even older Narnian language the Telmarines seem to have forgotten about, and the symbolic nature of the sword in Caspian's possession, that I couldn't take it.

He brandished Peter's sword at the slave dealers on the Lone Islands, and it reminded me so much of Peter when he told me, I told him Peter would be proud, and when he waved it at the dufflepuds, I didn't say anything. While it may not have been magnificent to threaten ridiculous creatures who mean no harm, it is still protection: protection of the crown and of a sister. I didn't tell Peter how Caspian used his sword then when we came home, and the knot in my stomach wasn't just longing for the Old Days with Peter and Susan alongside us, but I don't think it was shame knowing Peter would have done the same thing if he had been in Caspian's shoes, either.

My own sword felt awkward in my hands. Foreign and heavy and too much like a Telmarine sword to make me feel secure wandering through the unknown seas. It wasn't the sword I used during most of my reign. That's boarded up in Caspian's home with a little plaque that reads "the sword of King Edmund the Just." It has a Narnian name too, but that's lost to the Telmarines and forgotten by the Narnians. My own mouth has long since forgotten how to pronounce most of the Old Narnian tongue, and I'm not sure I ever knew how to spell it. But its definition is something close to truth and light. It's an Old Narnian word that used to be used for those first Narnians Aslan sung from the earth and their children, and their children's children. Followers of Aslan.

Reepicheep called the Island Deathwater for the effect it had over me and Caspian, but neither of us are sure that's what it was, exactly. Mostly, I think Caspian is bullheaded, and I'm the same, and the way Rhindon glittered at his side tightened the knot in my stomach and there were twenty years of memories and salvation in that sword, and millennia of legends and distorted fairy tales of my brother there too.

Caspian holding that sword reminded me of Peter.

But he's not Peter, he's not even close. I could tell by the way he held Rhindon, the sword that defended Narnia and her freedom, and I could tell by the way he held himself, cocky and unsure at the same time, and I could tell, despite how much Caspian protested, by the way he was a Telmarine, and this Telmarine was trying to order me around like I was a common subject. I was a good fifteen years older than Caspian really and he had some nerve trying to tell me what I could and could not do! A Telmarine who claimed to be a Narnian, and a Narnian King who grew up immersed in nothing but Telmarine culture and Old Narnian fairy tales, and he was waving Rhindon around like it was a toy, and –

Aslan –I knew it was Aslan –looked at me with those golden somber cat eyes. It was only a second, but I felt the shame washing over me before I even realized He was there, before Lucy turned towards Him, walking over the heather, and gasped.

He was only there for a blink of an eye and then He was gone. Caspian and I exchanged a guilty look then, and I saw him grip Rhindon anxiously, and I felt my stomach twist; Peter never showed any weakness with a tell so blatant –not even to me. A second knot pulled itself taught at the thought that the only thing Aslan could ever teach me was not to be as much of an ass as the last moment.

Dark Island, they said, is the Island where your worst nightmares come to life, and I joked to Lucy dryly that I was already living one of mine. She didn't laugh.

Caspian apologized as we entered Dark Island. It was black hole really, a mass of darkness on the wide open sea, where the days were getting longer and longer and the sun bigger and brighter. He apologized for Deathwater, and I wanted to tell him not to think of it in that way he expected of me, but the words got caught in my throat, so I switched gears and try to apologize instead, but what came out was, "Next time, don't threaten me." I said it with a light enough tone that Caspian thought I was joking. His laugh made it easier to apologize for real then.

"Really, truly, Caspian," I said. "If I weren't so bullheaded then you would have nothing to apologize for."

He smiled, and then, in less than a second, his face hardened and then brightened, and before I could react, Caspian was holding out Peter's sword to me and he was saying something he could only guess at and my fingers longed to clasp along the hilt of Rhindon, knowing I would have felt better entering an island of my worst nightmares with something from home and something of Peter's.

Knowing that if I could have taken it back to England with me I would have, and not to necessarily given it back to Peter.

Rhindon was glittering crimson in the setting sun glinting in from the window of Caspian's cabin. I remember when it used to shine red with blood.

"Peter would want you to have it."

I took it from him, and it felt like home, but a morbid kind of home that meant Peter wasn't available or able to be at the disposal of thousands of Narnians, and there was doubt he ever would be again. It meant I was dying, nine-years-old, on a battlefield and glorious, magnificent, _stupid _Peter was facing off against the worst tyrant Narnia had ever seen. It felt like change and Peter apologizing because he won't have a chance to make up for his mistakes. And all I could say then was:

"Peter always thought Rhindon meant protection. I think it means salvation."

Caspian smiled.

We explored the Island of Ramandu. That island was the beginning of the end of the world, and after that it was too bright for the light eyes of my sister to see most of the day, until there was no night left and the water we were sailing through was liquid light. I gave Rhindon back to Caspian.

"Why?" he asked. "It's your brother's sword?"

"Peter would want you to have it," I explained simply. "Besides, Lu and I are leaving soon."

"I will look after it until you return," he promised.

"You'll do more than that," I told him, because Rhindon means salvation and Old Narnian is the tongue of the gods.

Caspian wanted to come with us to Aslan's Country and I wanted to stay aboard the Dawn Treader. But we had to go home, Caspian too, and even then, as we were saying out last goodbyes, I think Caspian was going to say Rhindon belonged to me, but Lucy chose that moment to say something about Peter, and then, I think Caspian finally got it:

Rhindon means King.


End file.
